Unraveling
by lady quantum
Summary: After the dragon's defeat, things are coming apart. Uther's power is disintegrating; Merlin's life is crumbling. Morgause is plotting again, and Morgana returns to Camelot. In an effort to protect his people, Arthur unravels some unexpected truths.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's notes: Set after the end of season 2, this story will be about what happens next. Based on my (quite liberal) interpretation of canon relationships. I've planned for this to be a pretty involved multi-chapter piece, but we'll see how it goes. Let me know what you think._

_As always, I'm just borrowing these characters, since they're not mine -- don't worry, I'll give them back when I'm done.  
_

* * *

Morgause was troubled. High atop the battlements of the stone ruins where she made her home, she gazed out over her surroundings, frowning. As the sun slipped low on the horizon, she watched the knotted shadows of the forest unravel in the fading daylight, unwinding into the slender silhouettes of single trees. Her eyes traced the lines they projected across the surface of the still lake, following them to their distant origin on the western horizon. Towards the setting sun – and Camelot.

Events there had slid beyond her control. Uther still reigned. Something – someone – had convinced Arthur to spare his life, and even to trust him again. Worse, she was not sure who had cooled Arthur's anger, or how they had persuaded him to turn away from the truth about his birth. The cost of that failure was high; it pained her, and not only for its outcome. It had been hard to gaze upon Ygraine once again, hard to hear her speak the truths that Morgause knew would cut her half-brother so deeply. Harder still to watch Ygraine vanish forever, the doorway sealed until she one day passed through it herself. For what? It had all come to naught in the end.

The cost of her second failure was higher, for what might have been, and for what almost was. She shuddered to think on it. Lives dear to her were very nearly lost. Years of work were undone; the knights could never be raised again. Arthur, who was supposed to have safely fallen under the spell with the rest of the city, had nearly been killed, and he did not trust her, not after her first plan had gone awry. Her half-sister's trust, she had won, but she had then been forced to bargain the girl's life for the success of her plans – forced to bargain with a mere servant. It was insulting to have nearly lost so much due to the interference of a simple servant, one who should have been asleep in the kitchens or the stables with the rest of his kind.

She had since learned his name. Merlin. A simple, common name, a peasant's name. A name that troubled her nonetheless. He knew things he had no way of knowing. Very few people knew that spells could be cast through a living conduit – only those who were truly steeped in the Old Religion. No servant had access to that kind of education, and no one with such knowledge would ever lower themselves to the role of a servant. He simply could not have known that Morgana harbored the spell that had put Camelot to sleep. Yet, he knew.

After these events, Morgause had spent a great deal of time thinking about Merlin, and had come to suspect that he may have caused the undoing of her first plan as well. She had seen his loyalty to Arthur, and the trust Arthur placed in him. Arthur would have had no reason to believe the lies Uther surely told him when confronted; the anger Ygraine's words had ignited burned too hot. None of his knights would have dared intervene in such a conflict between the King and the Prince, and if the knights did not dare, who would have been bold enough? Perhaps only a servant fearless enough to bargain with a powerful sorceress like herself. That he had succeeded in talking Arthur out of his anger showed that Arthur's trust in his servant ran deeper than she would have believed was possible.

A creeping worry arose in the back of her mind while contemplating Merlin. Raised by priestesses of the Old Religion, she had been taught much of its lore and prophecy. However, between her ambition and her determination to decide her own destiny, she had dismissed much of the latter out of hand, refusing to believe events could be predestined centuries before their occurrence. Her own dreams, and her sister's, pointed merely towards potentialities in the immediate days ahead; she had little faith in anything more. Still, something about Merlin reminded her of those prophecies she had long since forgotten, and she could not quite place her worry, nor assign it a name. It bothered her.

As if it were called by her disquiet, Morgause felt a comforting presence arrive behind her. Her heart lifting somewhat, she turned to face Morgana.

By way of greeting, her half-sister simply asked, "Camelot?"

"Camelot," she replied, exhaling her worries into the word. Her brooding did not matter, for it would change nothing – only action would. She cocked her head and felt a half-smile play at the corners of her lips. Soon, events would be back under her control. "Are you ready?" she asked.

"I am ready."


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: Yep, so I fail at the timely update game. As I do for most evils in my life, I blame grad school. You would too, if you knew what a cruel and demanding mistress she is (or maybe you know). Although it's tempting to apologize and promise quicker updates in the future, I won't play that game, because I will lose at that too._

_And thanks for the reviews! They're really encouraging, especially since this is my first fanfic effort. It seems lots of you want more Morgana, so I hate to say this chapter will disappoint, but she's coming back, I promise. All in good time.  
_

* * *

To say that Arthur was troubled would be an understatement. Fiercely agitated earlier, he had paced circles in his chambers all morning; as the day wore on, however, he had moved far beyond that and merely stood frozen at his window, unmoving, rigid with exhaustion and despair. He could not recall the last time he had slept. The still-smoldering ruins of Camelot lay before him, and it seemed he could not banish the sight, even with his eyes closed. Over and over, the scenes played themselves out -- towers crumbling, women screaming, the knights' well-thrown spears clattering uselessly onto the cobblestones -- and fire, fire everywhere, consuming everything, unraveling the city at its seams. Behind the visions of horror, his mind chanted a refrain that pulsed with the steady drum of his heartbeat: _the beast that did this is not dead. The beast that did this is not dead._

He was convinced of it; by now, even his father, with his stubborn reluctance to acknowledge unpleasant truths, was convinced of it. More importantly, the city was convinced of it, and Camelot's citizens fled by the dozens, terrified of the dragon's return. The thought brought a hollow laugh to Arthur's lips, for what was left of Camelot for it to destroy? The city was finished.

Bitterly, he recalled the glorious span of time after Arthur returned to the castle, those few golden hours when he had believed the creature defeated. The kingdom was safe, and the people could begin rebuilding their lives. The knights of Camelot had surely just ridden into legend, battling the last dragon and defeating it with no magic beyond that of sharpened steel and their hard-won skill. Their losses had been heavy, but it was a knight's duty to lay down his life for the good of the people. The dead would be revered as heroes.

So it should have been. When a party of guards had ridden out for the fallen knights, however, to ensure that their remains could be entombed with honor, the dream had slipped away, and the nightmare had returned. The carcass of the beast was nowhere to be found.

Arthur's first hope had been that the wretched creature had simply limped away gravely injured, dying somewhere nearby. Yet, when he had led a second expedition, to search deeper into the surrounding forest, they had discovered nothing. Nothing. Not its carcass, not even a sign that it had crashed through the woods. In fact, it seemed the dragon had alighted from the very place where they had fought it, leaping into the skies from the charred center of the battlefield. The lack of signs did not permit any other possibility. Why had it left at all? Nobody could guess. There was no explaining a monster's logic. It was enough to know that the beast lived, and surely there was a chance that it would return to finish what it had started.

A noise at the door of his chambers interrupted his grim thoughts. Arthur turned to see Merlin enter, burdened with more of his clothing than he had thought the skinny boy capable of lifting on his own. Rolling his eyes as Merlin staggered through the entrance, Arthur turned to give his servant a hand.

"Merlin, why on earth were you carrying such a load?" he demanded as he set down a portion of the laundry on the bed.

Merlin grinned and set down the rest next to Arthur's pile. "You would do it too, if you had any idea how far it is to the laundry. Making two trips would take me half the afternoon."

"Well, seeing as how it takes you half the afternoon already, I don't see what the loss would be. Of course, you do realize that if you would just clean my clothing _more often_, you wouldn't have such a load to carry all at once."

"Oh, Arthur, what are you complaining about? It's all clean and here now, and I didn't even drop a single piece."

Arthur eyed a glove that lay on the rug near the door.

Merlin, following his eyes, scampered over to grab it. "Well, okay, maybe just one."

Arthur sighed at their banter. His heart just wasn't in it today. Luckily, Merlin caught his mood and dropped his characteristic grin, bustling about his chambers in silence as he stowed the (finally) cleaned garments in their proper locations. Despite his silence, Arthur really just wanted him out. "Merlin, you can go once you've finished that. Surely there are other duties you must complete _outside_ of my chambers."

Merlin looked up in surprise. "Oh. Um, sure. Except, oh yeah, there's one more thing I'm supposed to tell you."

"Yes?"

"You're wanted in the dungeons in a half hour. Your father – he wants your aid in his – um, his investigation. His investigation of the dragon. Into the dragon's, well, escape, and all." Suddenly Merlin seemed much more eager to leave, closing the cupboard door with a snap and stepping towards the door.

Merlin always seemed to get edgy when he was in a foul mood, Arthur had noticed. Or, perhaps today it had more to do with the subject of the dragon. He _had_ faced it with Arthur and the knights, after all, so he had seen close-up just what the creature could do. Arthur still wasn't sure what possessed him to do that – it was a gesture of bravery and friendship that he never would have expected from Merlin.

Of course, Arthur wasn't exactly grateful for it in the end, since Merlin had been the one to announce that the beast had been mortally wounded. He really should have known better than to accept his word unquestioningly – what did Merlin know about dragons, anyway? Spending a day with a Dragonlord while Arthur was unconscious did not exactly make him into a Dragonlord himself. He must've just been letting the exhaustion of the past weeks take over and cloud his thinking when he trusted Merlin's judgment. He'd have to be more careful about that in the future.

"Right. Thank you Merlin, that will be all."

*****

By the time he arrived in the dungeons, his father and Gaius were both already waiting for him, accompanied by a contingent of castle guards. Each and every one of them was carrying a torch.

Arthur raised one eyebrow. "Exactly how dark _is_ it where we're going?" he asked.

Gaius answered. "The Great Dragon was chained far beneath the castle, my lord. We will need as much light as possible to aid our investigation of his prison." He turned towards Uther, "If you'll permit me to lead, sire..."

"Of course."

The company fell into step silently behind Gaius. Arthur couldn't help but feel a nervous excitement possess him as they turned down a stairwell he'd never thought to investigate before. All these years he'd lived in the castle, never knowing such a monster lurked at the bottom of these stairs! He wondered how many other than Gaius and his father had known where the dragon's lair lay. It was common knowledge amongst the people, of course, that Uther had had the last dragon imprisoned, though he daresay some thought it no more than a legend his father had invented to bolster his fearsome reputation. Everyone now knew the truth of it all too well.

Arthur could understand the reasons many might think it a legend, however. Not only was it utterly inconceivable -- or had been, until recent events -- that Uther had managed to capture and imprison a dragon beneath the castle, it was a fittingly fearsome story for one such as his father.

He knew that his father was not widely liked; it was impossible to spend any time in the lower town and _not _know it. However, it was not important that a ruler be liked, only that he be respected; that was a lesson that had been drilled into him since childhood, in more ways than one. As he grew older, he could appreciate the truth of it, but at the same time, he also saw more and more that his father could have done differently, ways to earn the people's trust and love without sacrificing their respect. Uther's path was a lonely and isolating one, and Arthur found the thought of one day ruling Camelot in the same way as his father to be abhorrent and contrary to his very nature.

"Halt." Arthur's thoughts -- and boots -- stopped abruptly in their tracks as his father's command rang out. "We may find evidence of the traitor at any place within the caves, and we should proceed carefully from here." Uther nodded to his son.

Motioning for a guard to pass him a torch, Arthur stepped to the front of the party. As he pushed past a cobwebbed iron gate, he crossed the threshold into what he could immediately feel was a vast space. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that he stood on a narrow outcropping within an immense cave, and his mind marveled a bit at the thought of _this_ as a prison. The dragon certainly had had the roomiest cell in all of Camelot, even accounting for its unnatural size.

Casting his trained eye on the dirt floor of the outcropping, Arthur was immediately disappointed. He had no small skill as a tracker -- no doubt why his father had intended him to enter first -- but these tracks were completely useless. First, there were a lot of them, and many of them were even recent. Then, there was the fact that they crossed each other over and over, moving in circles, tracing and retracing their paths on the ledge. Very few footprints were even separately distinguishable at all, and those, only near the edges. Arthur could almost imagine someone pacing in agitation. But why, then, if their visits had been so agitating, did they return over and over again (as they so clearly had)? Thinking about it now, though, Arthur was not even sure the footprints all belonged to the same person, though at a guess, he would say they did. The bootprints he could make out were highly unremarkable, of average size and average make. Someone -- perhaps several someones -- had been here quite often, but on most of their visits had not done much more than walk about in circles, it appeared.

"It's all right to come forward," he called back to the group that was bunched in the stairwell, "there's nothing of note to disturb at the entrance." His father and Gaius stepped forward onto the outcropping, quickly followed by the guards. "Somebody has been here quite a bit, but there's nothing to distinguish who they were or even how often they were here. Just that they came a lot, and came recently."

"Well, if there's nothing to be found here, we will have to look deeper into the cave," Uther responded. He stepped to the edge of the ledge and onto a staircase that Arthur hadn't noticed before. The party followed in single-file, as the staircase was treacherous. Arthur supposed it had been used only once, when the creature was bound. Well, probably twice now, since it had been unbound.

The staircase ended at another narrow ledge. At this ledge, however, there was an enormous iron bolt holding down the remnants of an equally enormous iron chain. Looking at the size of it, Arthur could scarcely fathom how it was forged; the links were the thickness of small trees. He looked up instinctively at his father in awe of the power he commanded, to have commanded the creation of _this_. Uther's lips thinned under Arthur's gaze, and he looked away. It was almost as though his father was embarrassed of the chain. With that, a piece clicked into place in Arthur's brain. Magic must have been used to forge the chain. Magic to capture the dragon, magic to hold it. Magic working against magic. Arthur wondered if the sorcerers who had wrought the chain had been put to death as surely as the Dragonlords who had captured it. His awe fled, quickly replaced with a sick feeling of revulsion.

"Gaius, what is your opinion of how the chain was broken?" Uther asked.

"Well, sire, the chain itself is not magical, even if magic was used at is making --" _aha, I was close then,_ thought Arthur, "-- but it would have taken impossible strength or a great effort to break it." He paused as he bent down to examine the broken link more closely. "It appears to have broken cleanly, so I must conclude that magic was used to release the Great Dragon."

"Of course magic was used. Who but a sorcerer could be such a dangerous traitor to Camelot so as to release this horrible beast? Only a sorcerer would be capable of such evil. I had never suspected we would discover anything but that."

Arthur followed this conversation without much interest, suspecting his father was preparing to launch into Uther's Treatise on Why Sorcerers are Camelot's Greatest Enemy, Chapter Fifty-Seven. While Arthur couldn't help but agree that the sorcerers he ran into were generally hell-bent on killing him and destroying Camelot in the process, he did find his father's rants a little bit tiresome. He could, however, acknowledge that getting out of his chambers, even for this, had lifted his spirits a bit. He had been staring out that window for entirely too long today.

Wandering over to the other side of the outcropping while Uther continued to speak about The Evils of Sorcery, Arthur's foot caught on something metallic that definitely wasn't a tree-trunk-thick chain link. Casting the torchlight onto it, he saw it was a sword. He picked it up carefully and announced, "I've found a sword. Perhaps it belonged to the sorcerer."

A much-relieved Gaius (Arthur suspected he'd been listening to decades more of Uther's rants than he had) hurried over to examine the find, running his fingers gently, almost reverently, over the engravings on the blade. "My lord, this sword is no ordinary sword."

"Oh? It merely looks old to me."

"I believe this sword to be one of the swords used by the Knights of Medhir. Its blade was forged using the Old Religion itself, and it contains ancient power. It could, perhaps, be used to break these chains, but it would take a very powerful sorcerer to properly harness that power, and then why they would have left it here when..." Gaius trailed off, frowning to himself.

"Gaius?"

He seemed to shake himself, and recover. "Yes, my lord, it must have belonged to the Knights of Medhir, and must have been used to sever the chains." He didn't offer anything further this time.

Uther spoke up. "Well, that settles the matter, then. Morgause is a powerful sorceress raised by the priestesses of the Old Religion." For some reason, he shot a grimace at Gaius here before continuing. "Morgause raised the Knights of Medhir. A sword of the Knights was used to release the beast. It was clearly part of her plans all along, to destroy Camelot should the Knights fail."

"But surely the sword would not have been left here, then, if the Knights were still fighting when Morgause released the dragon," Arthur puzzled. "And she could not have been down here when she knew her plans had failed, for you said that she was vanishing from the throne room with Morgana as you awakened."

"Who else would have had access to such a sword? It had to have been Morgause."

"Yes, I suppose." Arthur knew that his father was like this once he had made up his mind, and there was no point in arguing, especially as he himself did not have a more compelling solution. It _made sense_ for it to have been Morgause. She hated Camelot. But he couldn't help feeling that it was the easy answer, that he was missing something important. And the way Gaius was frowning distractedly, almost like he knew something more about the matter that he wasn't sharing, that didn't help matters at all.

Who else _had_ had access to the swords? Aside from Morgause, nobody really. His own knights, along with Merlin, had destroyed the bodies -- and all of their arms and armor -- while the castle was still returning to normalcy. As far as Arthur knew, this had been taken care of right away, and he trusted the loyalty of all who had helped in this task. None of them would have spirited a sword away to a powerful sorcerer.

So, it had to have been Morgause. The puzzle was simply the presence of the sword, and that was a fairly unimportant detail in the scheme of things, really. Perhaps one of the Knights carried two swords. Perhaps one fought with a non-magical sword. Perhaps the sword was useless after being used to break the chain; Arthur imagined that hacking through three feet of iron would do a bit to dull even the most magical blade. Either way, it must have been Morgause.

"We must take steps to stop her from returning to Camelot, with the beast at her side," his father pronounced.

"Yes, of course."

"Would you be able to rally enough of the knights to ride out to face her?" Uther looked pained at the question. Arthur could understand why; he'd never before had to consider whether there would be enough knights. There just always were. Now, though...things were different. Perhaps a dozen survived, and many of those would not be willing to face the dragon again, especially not so soon.

"Perhaps, father. I will see what I can do, and we will go hunt her and the dragon as soon as we are prepared. You know, also, there is the possibility --"

"Morgana?" His eyes lit with hope. Arthur felt a heavier burden slide onto his shoulders.

"-- yes, that we will be able to rescue Morgana as well, if we can penetrate Morgause's castle."

"I pray it will be so, Arthur. See that you are well-equipped for this journey. I expect a report before you leave." His father turned and began the long ascent out of the cave, and the guards followed.

Arthur cast one glance back at Gaius before he fell into step behind his father. The old man was still frowning at the sword in his hands, almost as if he were angry with it.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's note: Yeah...long time no update, I know, and publishing another story in the meantime probably had a lot of you fearing that I had completely abandoned this. Nope! It's rolling again. I had to get the Morgana-Merlin confrontation bit out of my system before I could chill out enough to get back to something with more plot. Which, speaking of, this chapter doesn't have a ton of, but it does serve a purpose. Enjoy! _

* * *

Gaius looked up from the herbs he was grinding to see Merlin enter the chambers in a huff. He slung down his empty basket and began to storm about the room, tossing in odds and ends of the type he might need when preparing camp for his master in the forest.

"Merlin, my boy, what's bothering you so? Surely Arthur isn't dragging you hunting at a time like this."

Merlin laughed, without mirth. "No, it's worse." He offered nothing further, but then Gaius remembered the scene in the dungeon, and Arthur's mission. Ah. That would explain his sullen mood.

After a moment's thought, Gaius decided gentle teasing might snap him out of it. He raised his eyebrow and prodded, "To listen to you go on about it, there's _nothing_ worse than Arthur's hunting trips, save prolonged torture and execution."

"Which is what I'll be facing, on this trip, when we show up and, once again, there's no dragon." He tightened his grip on the camping knife he held, until his knuckles went white. "I can't keep lying about this forever, Gaius. I think I've already been through at least two different versions of what happened that night, and although right now Arthur might just think it was the horror of the battle confusing me, sooner or later he's going to catch me in a lie."

"My boy, you'll think of something. As much as I worry for you, if you've managed to keep your secrets this long, you can manage a while longer."

Merlin set the knife on the table with a snap and looked up to meet Gaius's gaze. "No, Gaius, I can't," he said, his voice straining with frustration. "The longer I keep my secrets, the more of them there are. The more of them there are, the more I have to lie to Arthur. I'm starting to forget what I've told him, Gaius! He knows something is up, but he's just let it go for now. How much longer will he be content to do that?"

He took a breath before continuing on, anger creeping into his tone now. "Worse, there's so much that I need to tell him, that I really _need_ to share, because he's my friend! Arthur noticed that the trip to find Balinor upset me! He even asked me to confide in him, and I would have, if you hadn't warned me not to. Arthur would protect me in this, I'm sure of it – he of all people knows that we can't help who our fathers are. But no, thanks to you, I have another secret on top of the dozens I'm already keeping, and I'm pushing myself away from him even as he reaches out to me."

Gaius gaped at his charge. "But, Merlin –" he began.

"'But, Merlin' what? 'But, Merlin, you have to keep your secrets?' 'But, Merlin, you'll die if you don't?' Gaius, believe me, I know!" he shouted. "I'm staring to think I'll die if I _don't_ tell him, that I'll just crumple up under the weight of all the lies and all the pain. And if I ever do tell him, I'll die just as surely as if I were caught, because even if he can accept that I'm magic, which he might have before I ruined that too with another lie, he'll never accept that I poisoned Morgana, that I –" he hesitated for a moment, "– that I've done bad things." The anger seemed to drain out of his voice with this, leaving a painful emptiness in its wake.

As much as Gaius wanted to reassure the boy, to coax him out of his pain and back into his usual high spirits, a question nagged at him. _I've done bad things,_ he said, and there was a sword that shouldn't be there in the dragon's prison. "Merlin," he weighed his words and decided to plow onward, steeling himself for an answer he feared. "Merlin, did you free the dragon?"

Merlin's face became a cold mask. "I had to."

"But – but what you saw in the crystal, surely you knew – " Gaius stammered, aghast.

"Yes, Gaius, I knew! What was I supposed to do? Without my promise to free him, he would let me fight Morgause in vain, and then _she_ would destroy Camelot! And once I swore on my mother's life, he told me to go _murder_ my friend, so what would you have me do? Let Morgause win? Kill Morgana and then let my mother die too? I had to free him! I thought I could maybe control him!"

Merlin gestured once, and his eyes filled with gold. Small items zoomed around the room and into his basket. When the chaos finished, he picked it up and moved resolutely towards the door.

"And in the end, Gaius, I could." He walked out and closed the door firmly, leaving Gaius staring after him, stunned.


End file.
